abraxaslogs | [ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

[ "Angry feather duster" is not a terrible description of what she looks like, particularly given the way the barrel of her shotgun sticks up above her head. Just a red and pink duster left to get drunk in an oversized chair.

Draining the rest of her beer, Julie huffs and tries to push through the haze of fury and alcohol surrounding her memory of her argument with them. Three separate arguments, really, each louder and more incensed than the last. Only Nadine had really given much actual reasoning -- Lloyd felt obligated to go protect her, and Susan mostly just seemed to be digging her heels in for the sake of it. Although it's possible that the latter two simply didn't get their logic across over Julie's increasingly panicked rage. ]

She [ there's a hiccup and Julie does not clarify that she means Nadine ] said that she wants to know if what happened to Geralt is a threat to us. And that she has friends still at the castle who don't use the Horizon, and she wants to see 'em. Oh, and she thinks she's gonna learn somethin' about the Singularity 'cause the Dimming's a big deal, but who fucking cares. I told her, I tried to tell her. I tried to tell her that Geralt's tripped up in some bullshit game those royal motherfuckers are playin', that they didn't want him for no reason, and I told her that she can't trust no one who stayed there anyway, so she shouldn't talk to anyone left back there, 'specially if they won't even meet her in the Horizon. And I don't fuckin' know what she thinks she's 'bout to learn about the Singularity. They're gonna be there for like, two days. Not long enough to spy, too long to risk it. They ain't fuckin' listen to me.

[ At a certain point, she has become more skirt than person as she curls in on herself, the layers of tulle and crinoline puffing up further around her. Her voice turns muffled, softer, more hurt than angry. ] They weren't never supposed to leave me. Flagg left me, and now they did, and that wasn't the deal.

[ Setting her drink aside on the ground, Ciri leans closer, letting Julie get everything off her chest. Her hand settles on Julie's knee (or an approximation of where her knee might be under all those layers of semi-sheer cloth), an attempt at reassurance.

This isn't just frustration at her friends being foolhardy. The pain and betrayal of being left behind, not listened to, by the people she is supposed to be able to rely on, feels raw and heavy in the air; it is a pain Ciri understands too well. Her fingers squeeze, gently. ]

Fuck them.

[ There's nothing else to say right now. She isn't going to tell Julie that they'll probably be back in no time, that they probably hadn't meant it that way; Ciri has no idea if any of those things are true, and she doesn't believe in lying to someone with platitudes. Julie is angry. She should be angry. She has every right.

Ciri will listen, instead. Sometimes, that is better than anything one could try to say. ]

[ There is a long moment of silence, and then from somewhere in the ball of skirt comes a small voice. There is a heavy note of bitter resignation now, as if she has decided something but is upset at the decision she had to make. ]

Back home, when Captain Trips hit, I was the only survivor in my whole county. It wasn't a big place, only a couple thousand people, but I was the only one. I went to every house. The hospital, hotels, the college, anywhere that people might've been. I went out to the farms outside of town. It took days. I got cuts from breakin' into people's windows and doors. I didn't care who I found, I just wanted to find someone. But all I found were bodies. Bloated, rotting bodies, some of 'em barely looked human anymore. Even the dogs and cats and horses were all dead. I know y'all see a lot of death in your world, but before that, I had never seen a dead person, and all of a sudden there were thousands of 'em. In the summer, in Kansas. The sun started bakin' 'em before they even died. In the beginnin', I tried to cover 'em up with sheets and towels, whatever I could find. But there were just so many, and it took so much time... When I realized there wasn't anyone else left, I wound up in this store, we call 'em big box stores. They're pretty much what they sound like, a whole big building that's just one room, a box, and they sell a little bit of everythin'. Food, clothes, books, furniture, whatever. All the stores had shut down when people started gettin' sick, so it was still clean. I didn't see another person for a whole month. I started seein' people that weren't there, in the corner of my eyes. I could hear 'em whisperin' all night. Other people finally got there, these two guys. One of 'em was deaf and the other was slow, like in the head. They wouldn't take me with them, left me all alone again.

[ There's another pause, and she takes an audible drink from the can she's still holding, having simply replenished the beer rather than reach for another one. Her words are just slightly slurred around the edges, the indication of someone who has drank a lot of alcohol in a short period of time, and really, she doesn't want to be sober. She rarely does, but she especially doesn't want it now. ] Then I started havin' these dreams. I mean, turns out we all did, everyone left alive. There were two dreams you could have -- either you dreamed of a beautiful king in the desert, surrounded by wolves, or else you dreamed of an old witch in a cornfield. I guess maybe some people had dreams of both, but I only ever met the king. He told me his name was Randall Flagg, and he wanted to save me. That if I would come with him to Vegas, he would make sure I was never alone again, not even for a minute. So I walked all the way to him, over the mountains and the desert. A thousand miles, give or take. Some others came from further. And when I got there, he was exactly like I'd dreamed him. Lloyd was his number two, runnin' the city, and his queen was on her way, he said, to help him rule. Nadine. And it was perfect, for those couple of months. Then it all fell apart, and we all wound up here.

[ Her voice wavers, just barely, almost not at all. She doesn't have tears to cry over it anymore, at least not in front of anyone else, and honestly, the last time she let herself cry, she wound up with a surrogate dad-slash-therapist. She doesn't want to make Ciri take on the same load that Sam picked up. ]

But Flagg was here too, and he told me See? I'm still with you, so it was okay. He disappeared before Halloween, but I told myself it was still fine, Nadine was here and she had sworn to fulfill his promises. To take care of us. Lloyd too, he's always promised to take care of me. And they both know, they know that I don't need that much from 'em. I was the one who got us on horses to Nott, I was the first one to get a job and make money, I was the one out makin' friends and learnin' about everyone else. I saved Susan's fuckin' life. All they had to do was stay with me. But when push come to shove, here I am, all alone again. At least everyone else had the decency to not abandon me at Christmas.

[ With a heavy sigh, she lets her head flop back into the back cushions of the chair, blinks up at the wicker curved over her. Downstairs, without her knowledge, several of the manifested people on the dance floor collapse and begin to wail, drowned out by the ever-present music. She will never know that it happened. ] It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Edited (i am so sorry for this wall of text) 2022-01-07 22:07 (UTC)

[ Julie talks, unraveling threads of her past and her pain for Ciri to witness, for someone to share it with; Ciri listens, eventually settling down on her knees beside Julie's chair, one hand still comfortingly on the other woman's leg, leaning against her gently just to provide the reminder of her presence amidst the story of Julie's loneliness.

Ciri doesn't understand everything she says, but the unfamiliar words are wrapped up in a hurt that is quite familiar indeed. There had been a time when Ciri had never seen a dead person either. And then, she had seen thousands. Corpses strewn to the horizon. Smoke from charred flesh in her lungs. Julie thinks that death is commonplace for them, and she's not necessarily wrong; but it's still horrible, and though Ciri has seen war aplenty, the sheer scale of most of the population being wiped out is still mind-numbing to imagine. (She has been to worlds like that, worlds of death and bones, of terrifying emptiness, and she wanted to spend as little time there as possible, lucky enough to be able to leave.)

She leans forward, peering up at Julie -- what can be seen of her, withdrawn into a mess of skirts inside the odd chair -- and gives her leg a gentle squeeze.

This is the first Ciri has heard of this Randall Flagg, but he sounds immensely important to Julie. She'd had dreams pulling her to him; that sort of omen is powerful, connecting people across distances like that. He must have meant a lot to them. And when he'd vanished, Julie had relied on the others in a way Ciri can't help but think is like family. She isn't sure, of course, but the way Julie says it, the raw hurt in her voice-- Ciri understands it. Only the people you care about can hurt you like that.

There is silence for a while, before Ciri realizes Julie has talked herself out. And she doesn't know what to say. ]

I know it's not the same, and the distance is still great... [ She ventures at last, softly. ]

But you aren't alone, Julie. Not today, not here.

[ The silence is heavy, like the weight Julie was holding in came out with the words, but she doesn't feel any lighter for it. Lloyd and Nadine, and Susan to a lesser extent, they are supposed to be her family now, because none of them have anyone else left, and yet they saw her tears and screaming and furious fear, and just wrote it off. Wrote her off. And if they're willing to do that, doesn't that make her alone again?

She peers at Ciri through a gap in the tulle, and as much as she wants to say that she knows, that it's okay -- it simply isn't. Ciri is right, it isn't the same. Julie cares deeply for them, all of them in Cadens, but she isn't under any delusion that they owe her anything. Not like Nadine and Lloyd, the three of them bound together in service of the same king. Things would be so much different if he were still here, if he'd stayed to care for them.

Her vision blurs slightly and she looks back up, rolls her eyes because she refuses to give in and cry. That's not what she wants, that's not the release she seeks out. If she could cry to feel better, she wouldn't need so many bullets or beers. ]

I know. [ Her voice is quiet, distant. It's a lovely sentiment, but is it any different than the whispers she'd heard in the dark of the store? If she goes back out in the real world, will those ghosts float in her peripheral vision again, taunting her? She snuffles and then closes the box in her mind, clears her throat and begins to stand again. ] Sorry. You don't gotta carry my shitty baggage. It ain't your fault.

Of course it isn't. I'm under no such delusions, rest assured.

[ Ciri rocks back onto her heels to give Julie a little bit of space, standing alongside her. Now that the other woman isn't a ball of inaccessible puffy cloth, Ciri reaches out and grabs her hand. ]

But I am here. And I asked. No reason to apologize when you've done nothing to warrant it.

[ A squeeze, before Ciri lets her go. She offers a smile. ]

Come on. Why don't you show me how to use that weapon of yours? Those tiny metal barrels have it coming.

[ Julie's instinct is to protest again, to insist that she shouldn't have said anything, let alone everything. The world she was brought up in taught her that the worst possible thing to be is reliant on others, to put your struggles in the open and ask for help. Unless it is a matter of life or death, you keep your trap shut, put your nose back to the grindstone and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's the American way.

But she gets the distinct feeling that this situation is a parallel of when she'd insisted that helping Geralt was not burdensome, that she would never have turned him away. That Ciri wouldn't turn her away. So she shuts up, just squeezes Ciri's hand back, then smooths down her skirt before she looks over at the fence.

The way Ciri describes the cans make her laugh a little, a single chuckle halfway smothered by the still-very-crushing weight in her chest, but it's there all the same, with the smallest of smiles. ] You mean the beer cans? They're pretty much just... jars, I guess? Except lighter and cheaper to make. I have no idea where people got the idea to use 'em for target practice, but it's how a lotta kids where I'm from start out learnin' to shoot. Line 'em up, knock 'em down, keep repeatin' until you run outta either cans or bullets.

[ Reaching into the box of seemingly endless ammo, she pulls out two shells and holds them up in one hand, her rifle in the other. ] These are bullets. Well, really these are shells. Inside, there's a bullet, gunpowder, some buckshot. Basically, this thing is a tiny explosion waitin' to happen, and this [ she holds up the gun ] is the spark. The explosion sends the bullet, a lil' metal thing, forward at high speed, to hit whatever you're aimin' for. Think about how much power you can put into an arrow, then multiply it by a million. It can go straight through a skull and out the other side, so you never aim at anythin' you ain't willin' to shoot. It's not like a bow, where you can change the power at the last second. Once you pull the trigger, it's done.

[ As she talks, she loads the new shells into the rifle, showing Ciri everything she's doing. ] This is a shotgun, or you can also call it a rifle. See, guns aren't just one kind of weapon. It would be like callin' every knife a sword just 'cause they both slice. There are lots of different ones, you use 'em for different situations and targets, but it's all the same basic idea, aim and shoot. Not much different than an arrow, but usually you're shootin' at things that are further or faster than you would use a bow for, so you take different things into account. Is this makin' sense?

[ Julie's assessment is correct, though Ciri isn't exactly good at explaining it; even if she didn't owe Julie (despite Julie's protestations), Ciri considers them friends now. Allies who watch each other's backs.

She hasn't had a great many friends, in all honesty. Trust isn't to be taken lightly.

Ciri smiles, letting go of Julie's hand when they both shift their attention to the gun, and Ciri encourages the distraction by paying close attention and nodding when appropriate, watching Julie's hands. Now and again, she offers a soft noise of understanding, a grunt or a hum, taking in the explanation with genuine interest that's not just because her friend is the one going over all this. ]

Of course. I understand. [ Julie's comparison is logical. There are many things that fit under a certain category but wouldn't necessarily be accurately called the same. ]

If you can't control the speed or force behind the shot, isn't it less precise?

It can be, but you make up for it in speed. A bullet moves so much faster than an arrow that you're more likely to hit any part of a target. All you need's one hit to slow 'em down, then you can fire again, more precise. With a shotgun like this, you try to stay within a certain range, and after that, you're losin' precision. There are other guns better for long-range shooting. There's also what we call shot. See, inside the shell, there can be a bunch of real little lead balls that fire out, too, so it's like a spray that can hit the target. Birdshot are teeny tiny balls, for birds, buckshot is bigger and heavier ones for game. Smaller guns, pistols and revolvers and stuff, they only fire single slugs at a time.

[ She opens the shotgun, loads the shells in and then closes it again. Pointing out the different parts of the gun, she watches Ciri to make sure that she understands. It's not that she thinks Ciri is incapable, it's just literally that she's never been this close to a gun. ] Stock, grip, barrel. Trigger, safety. Safety should always be on unless you're actually firin'. Dominant hand holds the stock at the dip, like you're shakin' hands. Index finger on the trigger when you're ready to fire. Non-dominant hand holds the grip and pumps, which loads the shell into the chamber. Swing the gun up, stock pressed back into your shoulder. If you put it under your arm, you're gonna get a lotta kick, so you wanna absorb it with your shoulder instead. You line your cheek again the stock, like notchin' an arrow, then aim.

[ She does all of it in one smooth, practiced motion, but doesn't fire yet. Instead, she looks at Ciri from the corner of her eye, over the stock. ] Got it?

[ Ciri pays close attention. As soon as Julie starts explaining, she's there every step of the way, watching, listening, taking stock of the different parts of the gun and the different types of ammunition as they're explained. She doesn't necessarily understand all of it at once, but she does understand most. A weapon's a weapon; it's not so different from a bow and arrow in its overarching purpose, or perhaps a ballista, but smaller.

It's also, frankly, a relief to see Julie coming back to herself after all that. Ciri understands the feeling intimately. Sometimes, it just makes you feel better to swing a sword at something; in Julie's case, it's shooting a gun. ]

Got it. [ She nods, waiting for Julie to fire, observing her closely. She just has one question. ]

What do you mean by "a kick"?

[ Ciri absolutely does not need to understand most of it -- Julie only knows this much because she spent her life surrounded by the "come and take them"-style gun culture of deep red America. But the contents of a shotgun shell, all the technicalities, these aren't things that really matter. All that matters are the basics, and Julie has no doubts about Ciri's capability.

Julie thinks for a moment about the best way to explain, then rolls her shoulder against the butt of the gun to illustrate the idea of absorbing the impact. ] All right, so "kick" is just another word for recoil. The force that pushes the bullet out also pushes back toward you, and if you don't take it right, it can knock you back. The bigger the gun, the bigger the kick. There are guns so strong that we hafta mount 'em, 'cause no human could take that much force. Anyway, takin' the recoil in your shoulder lets it go through your body to the ground. If you just tuck the stock under your arm or somethin', the recoil doesn't transfer anywhere, so it'll push you backward.

[ She cracks her neck to one side, then realigns her cheek before she pauses. ] You might wanna cover your ears. [ Julie is used to the noise, and she figures her hearing is already shot to hell from years of loud music and gunfire anyway. Plus, it's not real, but Ciri wouldn't know to manifest it at a lower decibel.

She fires twice, pumping the grip in between, and after each bang, there's the tinny sound of impact against the cans. ]

We have projectile weapons like that, but much bigger. They're loaded up with stones or metal bolts, like enormous crossbows.

[ The shape of Julie's weapon is different, but the concept isn't foreign to her. A crossbow is similar in many ways. She pays attention, watching Julie line up the shot and where she rests the butt of the gun. Swords don't exactly have a recoil, but momentum has to be accounted for, the force of the swing and the movement and the opponent's opposing force; again, Ciri can easily apply her understanding to this situation.

Honestly, it makes her curious.

She covers her ears as instructed, already having heard the bang from further way. It is even more unpleasant up close, and she winces a little, but she keeps her eyes open. ]

How long have you been practicing with this type of gun?

[ She asks when Julie finishes her round of shots. ]

Oh yeah, like a catapult! Wait, maybe it's a trebuchet? I don't know the difference. [ Her voice is very bright now. This is absolutely a woman who has been at a harvest festival where pumpkins were catapulted. ] Anyway, yeah, we have those! They don't use 'em now, but see, from what I can tell, your world is a lot like mine was about... six hundred years ago? Somethin' around that. We never had monsters or magic, but otherwise it seems about the same. Abraxas too, it's like my world hundreds of years ago. So we had that stuff, they used it all before guns and bombs were invented.

[ Shifting her gun to hold it over her shoulder, Julie offers Ciri her hand, where there is now a pair of pink tactical earmuffs. She knows that she should theoretically wear them too, but there's a ton of stuff she should do and never does. There's a pause while she replaces the spent shells, one where she thoughtfully rolls her eyes to the ceiling as she goes through her memory. ] Mm, lemme think. I got my first bow for my birthday when I turned four, which means I was still four when I got my BB gun for Christmas... my first shotgun was... two Christmases later? So I woulda been six when my daddy started teachin' me to shoot. So... nineteen years? Ish?

A trebuchet is a type of catapult. Bigger, with longer range. [ Ciri explains without even really needing to; it's just sort of automatic. She doesn't necessarily know a lot of details about weapons like that, but it's fairly common knowledge. Julie's explanation earns a thoughtful nod. Ciri had gathered something similar over their various conversations, the things she knows and how Julie keeps mentioning things being outdated or old-fashioned. ]

Really? [ Ciri blinks, impressed. ]

That's quite a bit longer than I've been holding a sword. No wonder your aim's so good.

Yeah, no foolin'. It's pretty common, where I'm from, for kids to start huntin' and fishin' around that age, 'specially the boys. My daddy wanted boys and he wasn't about to let the fact that he only had one girl stop him from doin' it too. [ Hunting had been the only thing Julie ever connected with her father over. If she hadn't been a natural shot, she's not entirely sure that her father would have even remembered her name.

She offers the gun, now loaded, to Ciri, along with the earmuffs. ] Here, wear these and give it a try. No sense in you blowin' out your hearin' too. Mine's long gone.

Mm. I see.

[ Ciri doesn't quite grasp that the acts of hunting and fishing aren't as necessary to feed their families where Julie's from as she's envisioning, but it makes her smile that Julie had proven herself despite her father wanting boys. That is an unfortunately familiar sentiment across their spheres, women being discouraged from weapons. Just as familiar is a woman's refusal to listen.

She takes the gun, holding it carefully, gauging the weight of it. The pink earmuffs get a look, but Ciri puts them on as bidden. Julie could have made them look less silly, but she doesn't point that out. She glances at Julie for confirmation as she tries to emulate her position, holding the gun up braced against her shoulder as Julie had. Right now, she's not trying to aim very seriously; she won't be able to judge that well until she can feel it firing. Anywhere out toward the targets will do.

Unsure how much the strange ear covers will muffle her hearing, Ciri decides to ask anyway: ]

How's this?

[ If it makes more sense, it's not that Julie hadn't grown up eating hunted meat. It's just more that her father wouldn't have taken her if she wasn't a crack shot from a young age. So see, Ciri? It's just good old-fashioned sexism, not modern conveniences. ~~It is also modern conveniences.~~

This is one of those times where Julie doesn't particularly care what someone who comes from before invention of the concept of safety thinks about the precaution -- on a range at home, Ciri would be in eye protection too, so Julie can't see anything to complain about. Julie just doesn't do it herself because she's a redneck dumbass and she's been going without since she was a small child

She gives Ciri a thumbs up and a smile, gestures for her to go ahead. ]

[ On Julie's go-ahead, Ciri does her best to line up her shot before squeezing the trigger. Her mouth drops open in surprise at the kickback, stronger than she expected, rattling her body and making her flinch. The bullet goes wide, hitting nothing.

After a moment, she takes a breath, braces herself more seriously, and fires again. Still no hit, but she handles it better this time. ]

[ Julie laughs at Ciri's expression, but cheers encouragingly anyway, clapping and whooping. That shock is familiar, appears on everyone whose first shooting experience is as an adult, but it's still very funny.

Julie grabs some more shells, gets ready to reload the gun for Ciri, but pauses after the second shot, making a vague gesture in the air with one hand as she speaks, slightly loud to counter the ear protection, her tone encouraging. ]

It's fast than an arrow, you don't have to compensate so much for wind drag. You can go straighter'n that and it won't go as wide as you think it will.

[ Ciri nods, expression set in concentration as she continues her practice. When it's time to reload, she lets Julie help her and watches, then tries again, each time learning a little more about how to fix her aim.

When she finally hits one of the cans with a loud ping, Ciri almost starts waving the gun around in her excitement. She bounces up on the balls of her feet, gesturing for Julie in a universal look! motion, pointing at the empty spot where the can had fallen. ]

Ha! I got it!

[ The furious, heartbroken feather duster is nowhere to be seen now, shut away in one of the mental boxes that Julie compartmentalizes pain into. Instead, there is now only a cheerleader, all applause and hollering, jumping up and down with excitement.

Is it healthy? Absolutely not. Is it what's happening? Sure is.

Still laughing delightedly, she cracks open a beer and offers it to Ciri. ]

There we go! See, ain't it fun?!

[ Compartmentalizing and choosing violence is the only way Ciri knows how to deal with her own heartbreak as well. Unfortunately, Julie's not going to learn any healthier coping mechanisms from her (and potentially less healthy ones, in fact). But as far as distractions go, Ciri has to admit this is a good one.

She grins back, taking the beer to reward herself with a long swig. For now, she slides the ear protection down to her neck as well. ]

It is. [ She sounds a bit surprised, but pleased. Not going to beat a sword in her book, but it's still pretty satisfying. ] Glad you showed me.

[ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

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